This application relates to the field of user interfaces, and in particular to user interfaces and data visualizations for viewing events or other information in chronological order.
Timelines provide a way to present data in chronological order. A typical timeline visualization includes a display area with display objects representing events plotted along a timescale. Prior timeline visualizations work very well for displaying events for one entity, such as the biography of a person. However, these prior timeline visualizations are poorly suited for displaying and comparing two or more different sets of chronologically-ordered data. For example, using a prior timeline visualization to compare the biographies of two different people results in a cluttered and confusing presentation in which it is difficult to contrast between the events in each person's life.
Another problem of prior timeline visualizations is that they do not offer a way to compare anything but milestones. For instance, there has been no method to visualize and compare processes in which activities may have a duration.
A problem of prior visualizations on small screens, such as on mobile devices, is that displaying many subsequent activities leads to the need for an extremely wide screen, or the loss of detail. Many concurrent activities leads to the need for an extremely tall screen, or again the loss of detail.
A further problem is that a user may want to vary the amount of detail visible versus the available screen space. This need has previously only been met by providing zooming controls. However, zooming back and forth can be tedious.
There is an unmet need to solve the general problems of prior visualizations and to provide a way to present timelines suitable for process comparison even on a display of limited dimensions.